Question

Tim has an encyclopedia in 5 volumes: A–C, D–F, G–J, K–N, and O–Z. Other than alphabetically (ascending or descending), how many ways can these volumes be arranged?

Answer 1

to arrange (n) objects in a row, there are n! arrangements (n factorial, not just n). plug in the n from the problem.
the problem says to exclude forward and backwards alphabetical arrangements, so just subtract 2 from the result